Sew: A Needle Turning Thread

There’s something about the art of appliqué that provides an innovative maker with many open-ended possibilities. Suddenly, the shapes available to create and the way you can utilize space broadens. Here we invite you to explore a sampling of the latest issue ofCurated Quilts: Appliqué. 

For the Love of Squircles by Marla Varner. @pennylanequilts

For the Love of Squircles by Marla Varner. @pennylanequilts

For the Love of Squircles is Varner’s second squircle quilt. Solid scraps were used to make one squircle block every day for a year, a daily devotional that is itself admirable. Varner’s execution is flawless. The quilt was hand appliquéd and hand quilted.For the Love of Squircles won the Quilting Excellence award at QuiltCon 2020. 

Convex Concave by Laura Ward. @crafttakeover

Convex Concave by Laura Ward. @crafttakeover

Laura Ward’s block inspiration for this quilt was a log cabin. Ward says she has a notebook full of quilt ideas and loves experimenting with needle-turn appliqué and especially likes to incorporate interesting fabric textures and layers of organic curvy shapes. 

Tuberose by Anneliese Johnson of Eye Candy Quilts. @eyecandyquilts

Tuberose by Anneliese Johnson of Eye Candy Quilts. @eyecandyquilts 

Tuberoseis an overgrown garden we would be happy to lose ourselves in. Johnson wanted to play with the trend of color gradation when making this quilt. She used Alison Glass Mariners Cloth and Kaleidoscope fabrics to make it. The appliqué is done using fused raw-edge appliqué. You can make your ownTuberose quilt by purchasing a pattern at www.alisonglass.com.

All the Lights Couldn’t Put Out the Dark by Liz Harvatine. @lizharvatine

All the Lights Couldn’t Put Out the Dark by Liz Harvatine. @lizharvatine

When making this quilt, Harvatine wanted to try her hand at large-scale, yet extremely delicate appliqué. Take it on, she did. An up-close examination of this quilt will leave your mind-boggled about the order in which Harvatine appliquéd the different parts of this quilt. 

Happy Thoughts by Annabel Lowe Wrigley. @littlepincushionstudio

Happy Thoughts by Annabel Lowe Wrigley. @littlepincushionstudio

Wrigley loves doodling and sketching. It was a doodle that she made one day that gave her the idea to try translating her doodle into fabric. She uses raw-edge appliqué to create her doodle quilts.Happy Thoughts is a perfect representation of what it feels like to have a happy thought that is just bursting to be shared. 

New Lover’s Knot by Ginny Robinson. @minnowpeck

New Lover’s Knot by Ginny Robinson. @minnowpeck

For Ginny Robinson, appliqué is the quilting technique she most enjoys and the one that she uses in her designs most often. While flipping through a vintage encyclopedia of traditional quilt blocks, she found a design called ‘Lover’s Knot.’New Lover’s Knotis Robinson’s updated, modernized version of the older block. She says about the quilt, “On a more metaphorical level, I tried to capture new love’s dizzying, technicolor joy while staying faithful to the ‘old love’ of the original block.”  


Curated Quilts, Issue No. 11: Appliquéis available now in hardcopy and digital print editions --Get Your Copy Today!


by Brittany Bowen Burton

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